Rain in Maine Falls Mainly in the Seine

A blog article here reviews the “standing joke” of Mann’s stubbornness in refusing to correct the wrong locations of MBH98 in the recent Mann et al 2007 network, where, as I observed, the prior errors are perpetuated without apology, even though the incorrectness of the locations has long been known to Mann. In a routine google, I noticed that there are even “rain in Maine” T-shirts , though the vendors have, for some reason, used a Parisian scene.

and Dr. Mann has not responded to your refutation? If you haven’t replied to it, there is his ‘apology’ (in the old fashioned sense) whether you agree or not. If you have disputed it and he’s ignored you, I would certainly be interested to see a history of the controversy with links to those portions available online.

I’ve seen discussions where people seem to believe Dr. Mann has ignored all your claims involving MBH98. I believe there are people who read Climate Audit but not RealClimate and have gotten that impression as well. Even if you are convinced you have adequately responded to everything he said and he ignored your responses, allowing people to believe he has ignored everything you’ve said is misleading, since someone who evaluated the whole discussion might well conclude he had a different reason for ceasing to respond than the one implied.

Steve: what does this have to do with Mann continuing to use Paris precipitation series in New England gridcells? I didn’t say that these incorrect locations “mattered” to his results. In Mann’s world, it doesn’t actually matter where a series is located. It can teleconnect to any place in the world. Thus incorrect geography makes no difference in Mann’s method. The point was not that the mislocations mattered, but that they persisted in a fresh publication in 2007 in Journal of Climate. The mislocations were well known and the butt of internet jokes, but Mann and his coauthors simply didn’t care and published the new study with incorrect locations rather than admitting the prior error. As to the realclimate post rebutting anything, it doesn’t.

Mr. Weisman, perhaps you might pick out a sentence from that extremely misleading article you cite, else if you’d prefer, you might just want to read all 4800+ articles on this site to get some context.

Given a single sentence from that article it’s probably possible to find at least one article here which refutes it. Of course the most dishonest claim in the article is that M&M were trying to produce a ‘better’ proxy line-up than Mann et. al. M&M’s point was that if you tried using Mann’s proxies but not their incorrect brand of principal components, you couldn’t get something which would pass muster in terms of r, RE, etc. Mann then has the gall to try claiming that M&M were trying to get something to pass inspection and failed.

This is equivalent to a student who failed a test blaming the teacher for using a bad scoring technique since she couldn’t find enough right answers among his efforts to pass him. And, of course the regular readers here are well aware of this; hence their chortling.

I read the first line, RealClimate talking about the failures of “Peer Review” and I was surprised. Somehow I wasn’t surprised were this “piece” was going after the first line… I would be more impressed if they would try to root out errors in the works that are “scientifically consented” in order to improve them – instead attacking the people they feel “challenged” by.

Ironically, instead of focusing on the (actual or perceived) errors of “MM”, RC boasts what marvelous work the “Hockey Team” has done. Si tacuisses, philosophus manisses.

I read the first line, RealClimate talking about the failures of “Peer Review” and I was surprised. Somehow I wasn’t surprised were this “piece” was going after the first line… I would be more impressed if they would try to root out errors in the works that are “scientifically consented” in order to improve them – instead attacking the people they feel “challenged” by.

Ironically, instead of focusing on the (actual or perceived) errors of “MM”, RC boasts what marvelous work the “Hockey Team” has done. Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

Re: David Weisman (#2), I forget exactly what it was that Mary McArthur said about Lillian Hellman’s inability to tell the truth about anything at all, but the RC article you referenced would certainly qualify for that description. It would be difficult to find a another screed that demonstrates more contempt for the intellectual abilities of it’s readers, including you, Mr. Weisman.

To err is human, to correct, sublime. It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. Now there is neither crime nor cover-up here, really, just error and denial. The arrogance is aggravating and ultimately, UNPERSUASIVE. Why must I yell?
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and Dr. Mann has not responded to your refutation? If you haven’t replied to it, there is his ‘apology’ (in the old fashioned sense) whether you agree or not. If you have disputed it and he’s ignored you, I would certainly be interested to see a history of the controversy with links to those portions available online.

Let’s give David Weisman a little break here. He is new to the hockey stick debate and clearly hasn’t followed the discussion. Though to think in a blog of this size and with this focus, that the Mann response above is somehow news or unaddressed is quite laughable. If he wants a current thorough understanding of the state of the debate, he will need to wade through a few hundred posts just here. But a good place to start would be to look at the “Favorite Posts” section on the left banner and click on “McKitrick: What is the Hockey Stick debate about?”. This is as good a summary of the issue as I have seen.

(This does not of course excuse Mr. Wiseman from missing the point of the “Rain in Maine” comment).

Thank you. In several different places I have seen it written that Mann had not responded to your corrections. If I now understand you correctly,

1) While you are extremely unimpressed by his response to your criticisms on most subjects, when I read on other websites that he has not responded to you, this is not a distorted version of your verdict that his responses are insubstantial.

2) Instead you are remarking that he has not responded (substantially or not) to what you said about numbers being put in the wrong grid cells. None of his responses refer to Paris or New England. The locations are irrelevant in the model he now uses, but were not in the one he used before you made your point originally. He tacitly acknowledged the problem by making this change, but in no other way, and has reproduced the same chart.

I didn’t post the link above because I thought you hadn’t seen it. I honestly expected to hear that the response didn’t prove anything, but that people who claimed he hadn’t responded to you at all were wrong. I’m glad I asked you before I told this to anyone else. Now I can look at the places where I thought I read that claim, and see how much was due to my own assumptions, which sites if any make false statements, and to what extent some might be deliberately misleading.

I don’t think you understand what a response is in a scientific context. And since it’s clear you’re not interested in engaging in a discussion of the issues, it’s clearly wasting our time responding to you further. Have fun confirming your biases, preferably elsewhere.

Please recall what I actually said in the post that Steve linked in the body of this post (also linked at my name).

“Michael Mann has been warned by the NSA to stop using certain data sets (strip-bark bristlecones, for example), and yet he continues to use them. McIntyre has also found egregious and yet easily correctable errors in his work, and yet Mann keeps propagating these errors in study after study.”

At no time did I say that Mann had not “responded” to M&M’s criticisms. I said that Mann, having been alerted to the easily corrected mistakes in MBH98, continued to repeat those errors in later studies.

That you are obsessing on this little detail — and wasting Steve’s bandwidth in the process — shows that you are having a hard time responding to the points I made against the AGW alarmists.

Please stop wasting these people’s time and respond to me either on your blog or the PW Pub.

You are really missing the point here. Steve was just bringing up an old joke of Mann’s stubbornness. No-one claims that Mann has not tried to defend his thesis – who on earth do you think is saying that? The methodology of MBH 98 and 99, and M&M’s response, has been debated extensively and has been the focus, inter alia, of Senate hearings, the Wegman Report and the National Academy of Sciences. Mann has had many opportunities to state his claim and has done so. It is however pretty much accepted by all serious observers, whether or not they believe in the hockey stick, that Mann’s methodology was seriously flawed. Please do some research – you can start with the Wegman report.

Steve:Obviously you are using Mann as your greatest victory proving nothing. AGW is real despite your hockey stick. Who really cares. The salient point is that the world is warming.If every Academy of Science, and every country except two, believe that Global Warming is real, isn’t that the Issue. Everyone needs a scapegoat and a justification to exist, and you have found yours. Why don’t you argue the science,instead of clothing your debate in rhetoric. AGW believers laugh at AL Gore, Hansen,and the media. All of this does not negate the facts. Your grandchildren would be proud that you thought more about them than your short term comfort level. KIPP

1) There is no evidence, direct, deducted, contrived, calculated, or otherwise that shows potential for global warming outside of margin for error. Statistically meaningless.

2) The best estimates for global anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 emmissions are a) less than 4 percent of the total and b) barely a fraction of the margin for error in our ability to measure both 1) global atmospheric CO2, and 2) Total global atmospheric annual CO2 emmission. Statistically meaningless.

Chances of there being a statistically significant trend in a data set that trends within it’s own margin for error (something on the order of 1deg C.) for more than a century; about one in 10,000,000,000. Chances of accurately detecting that trend through perfect statistical analysis of data with a margin of error that amouapproaches 5%; about one in 100,000,000,000,000.

3) None of the models has reliably predicted temperature trends over a 5 year period, EVER. Any claims to the contrary involve models revised in light of the recent data. Kind of like changing your bet following the race.